This report was based on the findings of a daily tracking survey of Americans use of the internet, but I’m extrapolating here for us Canucks, eh! In fact, from all I’ve read, we Canadians embrace online Social Media MORE than our south of the border yankee friends….we love being online…and that means to me at least, that our own Canuck numbers and Canadian SEO are skewed even more in line with online reputation management….

Here’s a sampling from that report…

Over time, several major trends have indicated growth in activities related to online reputation management:

Online reputation-monitoring via search engines has increased – 57% of adult internet users now use search engines to find information about themselves online, up from 47% in 2006.

Activities tied to maintaining an online identity have grown as people post information on profiles and other virtual spaces – 46% of online adults have created their own profile on a social networking site, up from just 20% in 2006.

Monitoring the digital footprints of others has also become much more common—46% of internet users search online to find information about people from their past, up from 36% in 2006. Likewise, 38%% have sought information about their friends, up from 26% in 2006.

Okay, so I already had figured that more and more users were searching for their own names online on a regular basis, as they began to find that staying “on-top” of what is said about them as well as by them is a good idea, eh! But looking further into this report I found that when it comes to that personal ID search factor, more and more of us are becoming aware as the report cites that 84% of users use search engines to check up on their digital footprints, compared with just 55% of other employed internet users. Among those who search for themselves, 44% do so at least every once in awhile, compared with 20% of other employed internet users…all very interesting and show a trend too, eh!

So, if you think that your own ID online is suspect…..that others might be “seeing” you in different guises than who and what you are….your first task would be to check. Google yourself. Yahoo yourself. Bing yourself…..and follow the resulting links to see just what has been indexed both “in” your favour, and not so “in” too, eh….

Incidentially, while your own mileage may very — but I check monthly on my own name (Jim Rudnick) I’ve noted lately that my results are almost at one million indexed hits….some of which it’s true aren’t me — but many are….and I can’t as yet determine how I could have such a large results number…’cept I’m always online…hey, maybe that’s it eh?